What the hell was I thinking, giving Colin my notice so soon? I mean, I know what I was thinking. He’d pissed me off so bad that I blurted out I wanted to quit, which I’d been planning to do all along but with at least a little more finesse . . .
God, I really screwed it up. To come to him now and say, “Hey, give me a few more months, I need a better plan” would be way too humiliating.
But how am I really going to make it on my own?
“Hell yeah, it’s a huge expense. You spent money on a tattoo yet you didn’t think of saving money for a car? I don’t get it.” Fable shakes her head, her disapproval ringing clear.
I reach for my neck, rubbing at my mostly healed tattoo. She’s making me feel like a complete failure at life. And all of her criticism is also making me quietly furious. Since when does Fable have the right to judge me? “We make our own choices, you know? Not all of us know how to take care of ourselves perfectly.” Like you supposedly do, I wanted to say.
But those last four words are certainly implied. By the shocked look on Fable’s face, she knows it, too.
“I never said I know how to do things perfectly,” she says defensively.
“You don’t have to.” I toss my money for the hostess and busboy that were on duty tonight into the center of the table and stand, ready to get the hell out of there.
“Jen, wait,” Fable calls, but I ignore her. She’s got her shit together, has her perfectly gorgeous boyfriend/fiancé, a decent job, and a brother who’s on the right track. Yeah, so her mom sucks and her dad is invisible. Yeah, so Drew has his problems, but come on. He’s a star football player probably on his way to the NFL, he’s loaded, and he’s madly in love with her.
I’m alone, living with a man who won’t admit there might be something between us. Or worse, he feels absolutely nothing for me and this thing I think is happening is totally one-sided. Oh, he lusts for me. I know that. But there’s nothing else.
Nothing. Else.
Now I’m stuck having to leave when I’m not close to being prepared. What if I don’t find a job? What the hell am I doing?
Whose fault is this anyway, you moron? That’s right—go look in a mirror and check out your reflection.
I exit the restaurant through the back door, ending up in the alley. No one’s out there and I plop down on an old chair, tilting my head back with a low sigh so I can check out the brilliant night sky.
Colin will be waiting for me either in his office or out front. Everyone else will leave through the main doors as well. I can find a few minutes of peace by myself.
Or mull over my absolute failures in life at the mere age of twenty-two. Could I be any stupider? It’s one thing to dance and strip on a stage for a living. Letting men stuff dollar bills down my G-string, trying to cop a feel—it was horrible, but I did it for the money. Lots of women do.
Then I got desperate. Moving in with a fellow dancer was my first mistake. She associated with unsavory people who stole all my money. Next thing I knew, I was meeting guys in the backseat of their cars and taking cash for making them come with my hand. Or my mouth.
I never took it any farther than that. I might have, though, if it had gone on longer. I don’t know. I was desperate. Scared. Colin came along at the right time and saved me.
I owe him everything. Yet I’m leaving him without an explanation. It’s bad enough that he watched me strip. Worse that he caught me in a car with a guy, though nothing had happened. That’s a moment we don’t talk about.
Letting my head fall back farther, I slump in the chair, thunking my skull against the wood once. Then I do it again. Maybe I can knock some sense into my stupid brain if I keep it up. Maybe I could work up the courage to actually talk to Colin again rather than avoid the real issues.
“Are you trying to hurt yourself?”
Great. I close my eyes. If I can’t see him, then maybe he’s not really there, right? “Go away.”
He ignores my demand. “I’ve been looking for you.” Of course he has. He’s always looking for me. Then he never does anything once he has me. I’m the brave one all of a sudden, which blows my mind.
His voice is the stuff of dreams. Deep and melodic, full of promise even when he says something completely benign, like “Have a nice day.” Girls fall all over themselves to hear him utter those words. Any words.
“Maybe I don’t want to be found.” As in, catch a clue as to why I’m back here when no one else is.
“Fable’s worried that you’re mad at her.”
I’m so tempted to open my eyes at that remark, but I squeeze them closed. “She has reason to worry because she’s right. I’m totally mad at her.”
“Why?” He sounds shocked. After all, we’ve been great friends pretty much from the moment we met. People think we’re cute together, how in looks we are total opposites. I’m tall. She’s short. She’s blond. My hair is dark brown. We look sorta funny together and everyone eats it up, which is silly. This isn’t a sitcom. This is our life.
And right now, my life and everyone in it is irritating the crap out of me.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mutter. I’m sure that’s the last thing Colin wants to hear, but too bad. I’m not in the mood to share all my secrets with him. He’s always so damn close-lipped, so right back at him, you know?
“Well, I’m about to lock up.” He lets it go, which I appreciate. And it also drives me crazy. He would push, try and get more out of me, if he really cared. Right? “Everyone’s left.” He pauses and I wonder if he feels as wound up, as unsure, as I do. “You ready to go?”
I want to say no, but that’s so stupid. He’s my ride home. We live together. How else am I going to get to the house? Walk in the middle of the night? His neighborhood is pretty far from downtown and it would take forever to get there. Besides, who knows what sort of creeps I could encounter? In the middle of the night, the downtown area is crawling with them.
Not bothering with an answer, I stand and walk past Colin, going through the still open back door. He follows behind me without a word, his silence making me edgy so I decide to offer him the same treatment. Usually I’m the one who feels the need to fill the quiet. I’d rather talk about nothing than endure even a minute of uncomfortable silence.
Tonight, I’m too weary for even that.
Colin
She climbs into my BMW, the car I indulged in as my reward after I opened The District. It’s a sweet ride, but I rarely use it beyond the drive-to-work, drive-home route. How fucking boring am I?
Her scent fills the interior, sweet and sultry and so uniquely Jen, my entire body reacts the moment she’s inside. Her shoulder brushes mine as she locks in the seat belt, her hair snagging on my shirt for the briefest moment before she settles into her seat.
It’s the same ritual every day. I breathe deep when we’re on our way to work. And I breathe deep when we’re on our way home. Trying to calm my nerves, tell myself I don’t really want her.
More than anything, I’m trying to inhale her. As if I could lock in her scent and never, ever let it—or her—go.
I’m going to miss this. Miss her. For once I was brave, asking her to open up to me. There was a motive behind my request. I saw her earlier. The customer telling her he knew her from Gold Diggers, the pure panic that washed over her pretty face. I wish she’d told me about that. I should have pushed harder for the real answer when I asked what was wrong.
“Can I ask you a question?” she says out of the blue, her tone extremely neutral. Too neutral.
“Uh, go for it,” I answer, wondering where she’s going with this.
“Would you ever . . . let me borrow your car?” She’s trying her best to sound like it’s no big deal. I’m not buying it.
“Why do you ask?” I glance at her out of the corner of my eye.
“I don’t know. Just wondering.” She shrugs, which means there is way more motive behind it than she’s letting on.
“I seem to remember you being a sh
itty driver.” She’d wrecked her brother’s car when he taught her how to drive. He’d raged over that for weeks, if not months.
“If you’re talking about Danny’s stupid Bronco, then fine, yes. I suck. I’m a terrible driver.” She pauses for only a moment. “I was freaking fifteen, what do you expect?”
I chuckle, surprised I can still do it. Laugh. It’s been tense around here lately and I hate it. “He never let you live it down.”
“He probably still wouldn’t.” She clamps her lips shut, as if she doesn’t want to say anything else, and I remain quiet, not willing to talk anymore about Danny either.
It’s too damn painful.
Everything had been left hanging between my best friend and me. We’d argued about my not joining the military. I told him he was stupid to do it without me. I’d been so angry that he’d lost the chance to come with me and start a business together, I hadn’t even bothered to see him off when he left. Only after he was gone did I have the balls to email him and tell him I was sorry. We’d chatted, we’d emailed, but it had never been the same. In one of our last conversations, he made me swear to watch over his sister if anything happened to him. I promised I would.
Soon after, he was gone.
“You haven’t answered me.” Pausing, she worries her lip with her teeth. I’d really love to worry that sexy, pouty lip with my teeth. Shit. “Would you let me borrow your car?”
“Well, is it an emergency?”
“Um . . . sort of?” Now she sounds way too unsure for me to believe her.
“A planned emergency? Because there’s no such thing.” I slow and turn right onto the street that leads into my neighborhood, my gaze drifting across the rows of beautiful houses, the perfectly manicured lawns, the expensive cars sitting in the driveway or parked out front along the curb. I love this damn neighborhood. It’s one of the better ones in town and nothing like the place where I grew up.
This is the sort of neighborhood you see in commercials, on TV, in the movies. I used to live on a dirt road when I was a kid, my mom’s little house nothing more than a shack. The roof was full of leaks and the floor was all uneven, with creaky floorboards and torn linoleum, and the one bathroom was no bigger than a closet and had a shower, no tub. No real yard, freaking chickens wandering around among the dirt and the weeds, crapping wherever they wanted. The very definition of rustic. I’d hated it.
Got the hell away from it, too. Never went back, much to my mom’s irritation. Last time I talked to her, she accused me of behaving exactly like my father.
I could only silently agree. Then I immediately felt guilty and mailed her a check the next day. Put her in a new house too a few years ago, one she complains about frequently. She missed the old house, the one she grew up in, so it must have had sentimental value.
Personally, I wanted to mow it down with a giant tractor, but she wouldn’t let me. So it sits empty. Probably overrun with mice, squirrels, and raccoons by now.
“Fine.” She huffs out a sigh, full of irritation. “I need a ride to Sacramento. Not that I can ask you for one because that would be beyond tacky. So I was hoping I could borrow your car for the day.”
She’s insane. Like I’d let her drive my car in an unfamiliar area. And her asking to borrow my car is tacky. I know where she’s coming from, but I want to hear her explain it. “Why can’t you ask me to drive you there?”
“Um, because I’m essentially ditching the home and the job you’ve so generously offered me for the great, wild unknown?” She laughs, sounding almost . . . manic.
Clearly, she’s stressed the fuck out. I’m ready to join her club.
“I’m still your friend, Jen. You’ve done so much for me. It’s the least I could do for you,” I say quietly as I turn onto my street.
More laughter comes from her, though there’s not much humor in the sound. “I’ve done so much for you? Who are you kidding? You sacrifice everything for me. Always. You’re my knight in shining armor, running to my rescue. What do I ever do for you?”
You’re just . . . there. Holding me in my bed when I wake up shaking and crying from my shitty nightmares. Never judging me, never asking too many questions. I wish I could tell you this. I wish I were brave enough to tell you how I really feel. More than anything, I wish I could tell you all my secrets.
I shake the words from my head. I can’t say them now. I can’t say them . . . ever.
“I’ll take you to Sacramento.” I hit the garage door opener as I pull into my driveway, easing into the garage and shutting off the engine like I do every other night.
But tonight, it’s different. Tonight, Jen’s looking at me as though I’ve lost my damn mind, those pretty dark eyes of hers eating me up. Probably wondering what the hell’s wrong with me.
I wonder what the hell’s wrong with me too.
“You shouldn’t.”
I turn to face her straight on, my gaze clashing with hers. “Why? What’s the big deal?”
She licks her lips, making them shiny and drawing my attention to them. Fuck it all, I want to kiss her. Forget the past, forget the present, forget the scary-as-hell future—I just want to lean over the center console and press my lips to hers. Steal her breath, steal her thoughts, steal her heart.
Like she’s done to me.
I don’t do any of that. I sit there calmly, my car keys in the palm of my hand, my body tense and ready for flight. She says the wrong thing and I’m outta there. She says the right thing and I’m jumping her in my car, in the garage, like a teenager trying to score before curfew’s up.
“The big deal is that the only reason I’m moving to Sacramento is because I want to escape you,” she admits softly. “This place, everything that’s happened here . . . the memories aren’t good, Colin. I can’t stay. It hurts too much.”
Her words slice my heart in two, not that they’re unexpected. After seeing the way she looked when the man asked her if she’d worked at Gold Diggers, I think I know why she wants out of here. Away from this town, away from me.
So I do what I predicted. I get the hell outta there, leaving her alone in the car, in the garage.
While I barricade myself in my room.
Chapter 8
Colin
I can hear the music playing from within the large, nondescript building. It’s loud, with a throbbing beat. As I draw closer to the entrance, the enthusiastic yells coming from the men inside are hard to ignore.
Whoever’s on the stage must be putting on quite the show.
Entering the building, I pay the cover fee and walk inside, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. The music has stopped and the stage is dark, the men quiet as they wait anxiously at their tables.
I sit at one, ordering a beer when the cocktail waitress approaches. She flashes me a sultry smile, her blond hair cascading down her front, though not disguising her ample breasts on display.
She doesn’t interest me. I’m too caught up looking for the girl I lost track of. The girl I disappointed.
A single spotlight suddenly shines on the stage and the curtains part, revealing a woman straddling the back of a chair, long, bare legs spread, feet clad in stiletto sandals. Her head is bent forward, her dark hair falling over her face, concealing her identity.
Recognition rises within me, making my spine tingle. I know who she is.
The music starts, slow and sensual, and she grips the chair back, tossing her head around, her long, dark hair flying. She stands, kicking the chair away with a thrust of one sexy leg, and the men start to cheer as she struts out onto the catwalk, a saucy smile curving her ruby-red lips.
Jealousy flares and I rest my clenched fists on top of the table, overcome with a wave of possessiveness. That’s my Jenny up on that stage, wearing a fucking G-string and a bikini top that barely covers her breasts. I’ve never seen her like this. Moving to the beat as if she was born to dance, her hips shimmying, her arms above her head, fingers running through her hair. She’s pure seduction and I feel like I’ve
been sucker-punched in the gut.
The men around me yell and whistle, chanting her name. They call her Janey, and relief fills me that at least she withheld her true identity from the crowds of strange men who come to watch her dance on a nightly basis.
I know who she is. I know the real Jennifer. Or at least . . . I thought I did.
The music ends quickly and I stand, making my way to the door that leads backstage. A bouncer stops me. The guy is huge and broad, with arms as big as my goddamn head, and I try to push past him. Tell him that I’m Janey/Jenny’s brother.
He doesn’t believe me and sends me packing.
I linger. I search. I ask questions. But I don’t see her. No one knows her. They’re all lying, protecting her, from what I don’t understand. Frustrated, I leave the parking lot. I notice a lone car parked away from the others, the windows steamed, the vehicle rocking slightly from whoever’s moving around inside it.
Like a man possessed I run toward it, yanking open the driver’s-side door to find Jenny inside with a man. A strange man who has his hand on her breast and her hand is on his crotch. I don’t fucking know what’s happening, but next thing I know I reach inside and yank her out. Toss her over my shoulder and carry her to my car, ignoring her protests, wincing against the punches her hands are pounding against my back.
“Put me down! Go away, Colin! I don’t need you. I’ve never needed you!”
She’s angry, but I don’t care. I’m angrier. Disappointed. In both her and myself. What is she doing? It’s bad enough she strips on a stage every night. Why the hell was she in that man’s car, letting him touch her like that?
I don’t want to know. I’m in fucking denial.
It’s easier that way.
I sit straight up in bed, my body covered in sweat, my head roaring, the blood rushing in my ears, drowning out all other sounds and thoughts. Thrusting my hand through my hair, I grab my cell phone and check the time, see that it’s just past three in the morning.
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